In HR we often rely on common sense. But there is a dark side to common sense that HR needs to stay aware of.

Sometimes our instincts will steer us the wrong way.

Behavioral psychologists call this “cognitive bias”. It will affect perceptions, it will affect objectivity, and it will affect relationships—in both positive and negative ways. That makes it very relevant to culture management and to you.

James Joyce’s famous statement that “history is a nightmare” from which we should try to awake, aptly describes current events in the Ukraine. All nations involved in these events are biased by the remembered, misremembered, forgotten, and mythologized history they carry in their heads.

Anne Egros's insight:

"Our national memories have the passion and power to drive us blindly to hatreds and to war"

History is actually biased opinions based on popular stories that people believe as facts and do not challenge.

Those stories are used to exacerbate our patriotism: "our stories" versus "the "enemy stories". They are used in propaganda and to manipulate the public opinion toward a common goal : eliminating the enemy.

For example, Hillary Clinton, on March 5, said that Putin’s concern for Russians in Ukraine is like Hitler’s concern for Germans in Poland and Czechoslovakia.

This is a very good example of manipulation:

Labeling Putin as "Hitler" is a sure way to activate a demon in the American national memory and to mobilize the United States to again fight the evil personified (just like Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castro, Chavez, Allende or Gaddafi , to name a few of many leaders that have

been called "Hitler" by American politicians")

Russians are looking at Ukraine as increasing the threat of being invaded. After the collapse of the USSR, many previous Soviet republics in Eastern Europe are now members of NATO with military bases. Ukraine and Belarus are actually the last soviet republics that are not EU members.

Each era of Russian history has had its military super-power, and each super-power in turn attacked Russia: Turks, Poles, Swedes, French, Germans, British, and Japanese have each invaded Russia more than once.

The Intercultural Development Research Institute is an international non-profit organization whose mission is to contribute to a constructivist definition of the field of intercultural communication and to support continuing and new research in intercultural...

Introduction to Communication Science by Rutger de Graaf University of Amsterdam

Anne Egros's insight:

Analysts of the First World War found a direct correlation between Media campaign for war and patriotism on one hand and the motivation of patriotic people ready for war. That is the power of propaganda.

Now If I think about how much more messages are sent today compared to 1913 via traditional mass media and how personalized social media messages are, do you think we have already a recipe for a hot war between US, EU (NATO) and Russia about Ukraine ?

Are those articles showing real threat from Russia or is it Western media propaganda ?

The executive director of real estate agency Evans Property Services, told The Moscow Times that there were about 20 percent fewer requests for Moscow home rentals for expats in the last quarter of 2014.

Anne Egros's insight:

"The main reason that expats are leaving is that if they are paid in dollars, euros, pounds, etc., then they have suddenly become doubly expensive," he said.

Foreigners who come over on a corporate contract, "will stay if their particular business is doing OK, but many will find themselves sent home or to another market."

I basically said the same thing in an article that I wrote about being an expat and respecting the host country's values, history, customs by simply keeping private your cultural differences.

"I simply cannot drop everything that makes me who I am, my cultural values, beliefs, language and traditions in the name of integration or even in the name of respect for my host country as long as the way I behave is not hurting anybody’s feelings or their own values

Of course the complex problem of immigration, assimilation and, diversity in France is far more complex than what I experience as an expatriate but I still understand the basic needs of people to belong to a community they share values with.

Educating yourself about your host country's culture in depth is a must for all expatriates and evidently for people who get the nationality of their host country and establish themselves there.

I basically said the same thing in an article that I wrote about being an expat and respecting the host country's values, history, customs by simply keeping private your cultural differences.

"I simply cannot drop everything that makes me who I am, my cultural values, beliefs, language and traditions in the name of integration or even in the name of respect for my host country as long as the way I behave is not hurting anybody’s feelings or their own values

Of course the complex problem of immigration, assimilation and, diversity in France is far more complex than what I experience as an expatriate but I still understand the basic needs of people to belong to a community they share values with.

Educating yourself about your host country's culture in depth is a must for all expatriates and evidently for people who get the nationality of their host country and establish themselves there.

In popular writing today, culture shock is most often described as a virus: you step off the plane in a new country and BANG you catch a bug.

The culture shock terminology gives us the impression that the emotions we go through – the frustration, confusion and irritation – is all the fault of a little virus called ‘the other culture’.

But it isn’t.

The cause of our discomfort is actually ‘change’.

Three basic approaches to change:

1-Resist change in which case you tend to feel anxiety, irritation, anger, disorientation etc from when change occurs until a time when you have adjusted to the situation;

2-Wait and see what change will bring in which case you sometimes feel anxiety flu and sometimes don’t depending on how you perceive the new situation;

3-Proactively take initiatives to deal with change in which case you tend feel pretty positive in change situations and may only get flu-like symptoms during certain particularly difficult moments.

Not mentioned in the article, based on my own experience as a global manager and coach, I suggest some ideas about change that individual expats can borrow from global leaders to manage their life abroad.

Top 7 key attitudes of strategic global leaders and managers:

1.Create a compelling vision shared by all stakeholders (you and family members)

2.Create farsighted strategies to achieve the vision (what do you want to achieve during the time you stay in a new country? Goals ? )

3.Be willing to accept failures (don't be shy, try new things that you would not do at "home")

4.Focus on inspiring and empowering people while providing honest feedback with cultural sensitivity (start first to understand and then be understood)

In the original article « Notre système d’intégration produit des ségrégations en se pensant égalitaire », Patrick Simon, a French sociologist. offers an overview of the French integration model :

Anne Egros's insight:

I simply cannot drop everything that makes me who I am, my cultural values, beliefs, language and traditions in the name of integration or even in the name of respect for my host country as long as the way I behave is not hurting anybody’s feelings or their own values.

After two weeks following the massacre of Charlie Hebdo Magazine’s journalists, tensions are rising in France with a sharp increase of anti-Muslim incidents and internationally with several violent anti- French protests in response to the caricature of the Prophet Muhammad across Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

After I posted a story last week with the headline, “What To Do As Soon As You Get Laid Off,” I hosted a chat on Forbes’ LinkedIn page and fielded questions and comments from readers. One comment came in from UK-based Jack McLaren-Stewart, who works in sales for a company [...]

Increased opportunity for conflict in a matrix can include the following:

→In a matrix, employees have more than one boss and work on multiple teams. Resources are shared more widely across the organisation and this can create competition for resources.

→Working with more diverse groups of colleagues from different functional, corporate and national cultures, and different perspectives and values, can easily cause misunderstanding.

→Virtual teams often have limited opportunities to meet face to face; instead they are working together through email, webinars, video and other tools, all of which make misunderstandings more likely

→Leaders who are used to a more “command and control” way of working may find it difficult to adapt to accountability without control and influence without authority and may respond by trying to increase their control over activities.

(From the article) A typical sequence for resolving conflict has four stages – recognizing the problem, understanding the differences, creating shared purpose, and building and delivering agreements. Having recognized the problem, the next three phases involve moving past understanding the differences into finding common ground and deciding how you are going to work together in the future. These three phases are much more difficult to deliver remotely, particularly at the early stage where there is often an emotional component to the discussions.

Meet face to face if you possibly can at this stage, as it is important to understand what people think and feel and also to understand why. You then need to look hard for existing points of commonality, which often means finding the common business goal.

Led by Sandy Pentland, researchers at MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory set out to solve that puzzle. Hoping to decode the “It factor” that made groups click, they equipped teams from a broad variety of projects and industries (comprising 2,500 individuals in total) with wearable electronic sensors that collected data on their social behavior for weeks at a time.

With remarkable consistency, the data showed that the most important predictor of a team’s success was its communication patterns. Those patterns were as significant as all other factors—intelligence, personality, talent—combined. In fact, the researchers could foretell which teams would outperform simply by looking at the data on their communication, without even meeting their members.

In this article Pentland shares the secrets of his findings and shows how anyone can engineer a great team. He has identified three key communication dynamics that affect performance: energy,engagement, and exploration. Drawing from the data, he has precisely quantified the ideal team patterns for each. Even more significant, he has seen that when teams map their own communication behavior over time and then make adjustments that move it closer to the ideal, they can dramatically improve their performance.

While the conflict between Ukraine and Russia continues it is worth reflecting on what lies behind Russia's position.

Anne Egros's insight:

This article offers an interesting perspective on the Ukraine conflict.

Russians do not have the same logic regarding money than Western Europe or the U.S., so more economic sanctions toward Russia actually reinforce the patriotism of Russian people and make them feeling more and more misunderstood and unfairly treated by the West.

Here two examples:

Everybody in Europe was surprised that Mr Putin banned importation of fresh products from EU into Russia as a reply of Western financial sanctions, resulting in a sharp increase of local prices and triggering a 20 % inflation.

Although Russia does not produce those vegetables, fruits or cheeses, the majority of Russians are convinced it is good for their country in the long run and are ready to pay the price to boost "Made in Russia" products that actually do not and will not exist.

Saying that one of the reasons that Russians annexed Crimea was to reduce the costs of delivering gas to Europe is also a big misunderstanding of the Russian motives and values in this conflict.

As a result, Europeans were caught totally by surprise when Russian Gazprom, the world's biggest natural gas supplier, announced its decision to cut totally its gas shipment to Europe via Ukraine’s Soviet-era network and replace it by a new line under the black sea to Turkey. (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...&nbsp;)

This decision is again totally absurd economically for Russia, but it has a logic you can find in History : the Russians preferred to burn Moscow rather than giving its resources to Napoleon when he arrives in the city in 1812.

I totally agree with the conclusion of this article and the metaphor about the wounded bear. I am afraid though that the misunderstanding between Russians and the West will continue to grow until eventually everything get burned.

It is generally understood that global leadership differs significantly from domestic leadership and that, as a result, expatriates need to be equipped with competencies that will help them succeed in an international environment. Commonly accepted global leadership competencies, for both male and female global leaders include cultural awareness, open-mindedness, and flexibility. However, during the research for our book, we found that there are four global leadership competencies that are shared among female expatriate leaders. They are:

Self-awareness. Know your strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, which are all based on your values, and use this knowledge to make critical decisions. Conscious imbalance. Tip the scales toward what gives you energy and fulfillment with the realization that the scales will need to be rebalanced on a regular basis. Operating outside your comfort zone. Embrace challenges coming from new experiences by tolerating ambiguity and remaining calm. Active career management. Know what you want from your career and actively work on achieving it.

Anne Egros's insight:

In Russia, I see more and more men willing to take the role of "following" expat partners who take care of family responsibilities and therefore more women who take managerial positions. Those women are working for big global companies and come from all over the world, I met men coming from France, Turkey, Israel, or United-States for example.

Contributed by Diane Lemieux, a Canadian/Dutch writer who has lived in 11 countries and speaks 4 languages. Her latest book is The Mobile LIfe: a new approach to moving anywhere. Find her blog at http://diane-lemieux.com/mobilelife/

Anne Egros's insight:

A very nice story about cultural differences and how to deal with them while living abroad as an #expat

The Western sanctions hurled at Russia over its annexation of Crimea and involvement in Ukraine may have had one unintended (or perhaps intended?) side effect — the mass exodus of foreigners earning money on the magically disappearing ruble.

The Ruble crisis also hit hard immigrants from countries that rely heavily on rubles sent home. In the region, most vulnerable countries are the central Asian countries of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Source: @guardian: “Russia’s ruble crisis poses threat to nine countries relying on remittances” http://gu.com/p/45xjh/tw

Russia's surging inflation rate will remain high through spring of next year, propelled by the devaluation of the ruble currency and the steep cost of Moscow's bans on food imports from Western countries that sanctioned it over Ukraine.

Anne Egros's insight:

Russia’s surging inflation rate will remain high through spring of next year, propelled by the devaluation of the ruble currency and the steep cost of Moscow’s bans on food imports from Western countries that sanctioned it over Ukraine.

The rapid tumble of the ruble, which has lost a third of its value so far this year, has accelerated inflation by raising the price of foreign imports.

The Russia ban on Western fresh product imports has triggered a rise in locally produced food prices such as pork and poultry.

Lack of competition from cheaper imported products is benefiting domestic producers. so for Russian consumers everything is getting more expensive.

However sanctions are not the major problem when it comes to the ruble,. The two main factors that contribute to weakening of the Russian economy are:

1-The costs of borrowing money, which increased even more than a year before the Western sanctions over Russian banks were applied in September.

2–The sharp decrease of the oil price under $100 per barrel. The OPEC announced late on November 27 that the oil cartel would not cut production, sending the price of oil around $70 per barrel. The announcement also sent the Russian ruble lower to the U.S. dollar and euro. The ruble dropped to over 50 against the U.S. dollar late on November 28 and dropped to 62.03 against the euro in early trading recovering to 61.41 by the close of the day.

(From the article): The richest person in the world could be miserable while a person living in the slums of a third world country could be happy and content. I have spent plenty of time amongst both groups to have seen it first hand. Happy people are happy because they make themselves happy. They maintain a positive outlook on life and remain at peace with themselves.

Sharing your scoops to your social media accounts is a must to distribute your curated content. Not only will it drive traffic and leads through your content, but it will help show your expertise with your followers.

Integrating your curated content to your website or blog will allow you to increase your website visitors’ engagement, boost SEO and acquire new visitors. By redirecting your social media traffic to your website, Scoop.it will also help you generate more qualified traffic and leads from your curation work.

Distributing your curated content through a newsletter is a great way to nurture and engage your email subscribers will developing your traffic and visibility.
Creating engaging newsletters with your curated content is really easy.